Florida Ranked One of the Best States for "High Earners and Affluent Families"

When high earners look for a place to buy a home for their families, they tend to do some research into factors like income taxes and home value trends. RewardExpert, a New York-based company whose services help people get the maximum benefit for their spending and traveling, did some surveying to determine the best states for high earners and affluent people. Their study found Florida to be the best Southern state for people of this status, ranking at number 4 in the country.

The study was completed using 20 data metrics including sales tax, quality of life, school quality, real estate prices and trends, property taxes and assessment ratios, and state income taxes.

When most people hear the term "affluent," they tend to think of the "one percent" of the population. However to ensure that this study is relevant and useful to a larger demographic, RewardExpert purposely defined "high earners" and "affluent families" to exclude incomes in and above the top one percent, according to founder Vlad Tyschuk. "While the balance of our analysis remains valid and applicable to top earners, we assumed individual or household incomes within the top 2 to 25 percent. This roughly covers individuals earning $125,000-$250,000 per year, and families with household incomes ranging from $200,000 to $500,000.”

Florida listed at number 4 for the following reasons:

No state income taxes

Rebounding home values, noting "Property values in Florida are up by 1.03 percent from early 2008, and up by 9.57 percent in the past year."